Using a GDSS to Facilitate Group Consensus: Some Intended and Unintended Consequences

Abstract

A cumulative body of experimental research is emerging that examines the ability of computer technology to support the processes and outcomes of small group meetings. For the most part the group decision support system effort has been concerned with demonstrating the usefulness of the technology in planning and decisionmaking situations where the quality of the meeting's outcomes can be objectively assessed. In many decision situations, however, there is no objective measure of decision quality available. Rather, the group must reconcile differences in opinion, personal preference, or judgment and achieve consensus about a particular mode of act/on. As a contribution to the accumulating research on GDSS, the current study examines the effects of a GDSS in resolving conflicts of personal preference. In a task requiring resolution of competing personal preferences, 82 groups-the largest sample size in the GDSS literature to date-were randomly assigned to one of three experiment conditions: (1) computer-based support system (GDSS); (2) a ual, paper and pencil, support system; or (3) support whatsoever. Groups were either of size 3 or 4 persons. Use of the GDSS was expected to facilitate democratic participation in group discussion, move group members toward agreement with one another, and result in a high level of satisfaction with the group decision process. While several of the intended effects of the technology were observed, the groups experienced some unintended consequences as a result of using the GDSS. In general, the GDSS technology appeared to offer some advantage over no support, but little advantage over the pencil and paper method of supporting group discussion,

Use of Mobile Devices in the Performance of Group Decision-Making under Contextual Pressure

“…For the idea generation task, we proposed brainstorming (Watson et al 1988). A group uses brainstorming to indicate the verbal generation of ideas.…”

D-side: A facility and workforce planning group multi-criteria decision support system for Johnson Space Center

“…Where feasible, items were adapted from items used in previous studies (e.g., [27,29,30,[32][33][34][35][36]). All items are presented in the appendix.…”

Generating Agreement in Computer-Mediated Groups

“…Some experiments have used a more sensitive measure based on fuzzy set theory (Sambamurthy & Chin, 1994;Tan, Wei, & Krishnamurthy, 1991;Watson et al, 1988, Sep), but this only works with interval data, not nominal data such as limited-choice tasks usually produce, and requires data in the form of voting probabilities (Tan, Teo, & Wei, 1995). The measure used in this study can be applied to interval, ordinal and nominal data.…”

“…The suggestion that computers support task rather than social interaction has a long research history (Hiltz, Johnson, & Turoff, 1986;Ho & Raman, 1991;Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & McGuire, 1986). However there is an equally long history reporting no difference between computer and FTF groups in generating agreement (Watson, DeSanctis, & Poole, 1988, Sep), and in a recent review, 58 of the 67 studies measuring consensus showed no main effect for computer-mediated by FTF (Fjermestad & Hiltz, 1999a). And some studies report computer-mediated groups generate more consensus than FTF interaction (Lea & Spears, 1991;Postmes & Spears, 1998).…”